chin up or pull up?

Chin-up. I didn't even dare try a pull-up.

Wow congratulations on sticking to it this long! Looking forward to seeing the progress!

where are you! i want to know the results of your 3 month anniversary!

Im thinking of you Cord... You have been working hard with lots of ups and downs..but increasingly going in the right direction. You are making a difference to your body, not just the outside, but all of your insides are going to be pretty damn happy with the good food choices and exercise you are doing. (if you look over your diaries the good far exceeds the oopses) Keep it up my friend ~ Michelle

Can you tell I'm in a good mood today?

I'll post my journal stuff for yesterday later. For now, I'm going to talk about my questiversary.

3 months. It feels good, so, so good, to have stayed on track for this long. And I don't feel like stopping, at all. That's even better.

I really think that the changes I have made to my lifestyle are going to stick. It's not a diet, it's not a temporary workout kick. I think I have made permanent changes.
This is not to say it is always going to be easy. It is not to say that I won't have hurdles, stumbles, and challenges to face in the future. It is not to say that I don't still sometimes crave junk food and pop. I think that, for me, it is going to be something that is always out there, always having to be faced. But the key is to keep going on, no matter what.

I'm lighter, a lot lighter. I'm smaller - somewhat smaller. I'm fitter - stronger, faster, tougher. Heck, I went up - and down - 300 flights of stairs yesterday. If that isn't a sign of improved fitness, I don't know what is.

I'm quite a bit happier. There's no way to quantify that, but I'm happier. My wife definitely notices it.

Weight: My weigh-in this morning was 272 lbs. That's 5 less than last week, and a total of 39 pounds lost in 3 months.

Measurements: here are my latest measurements, in clunky table-like form that includes my previous measurements.

-------- 02 April -- 30 April -- 29 May -- 02 July
Chest: ---- 55 ----- 52 ----- 51 ------- 49
Waist: ---- 53.5 --- 50 ----- 49.5 ------ 47
Hips: ----- 52 ----- 51 ----- 50 -------- 49
Upper Arm: 17 ----- 16 ----- 16 -------- 15
Forearm: --13 ----- 13 ----- 12.5 ------- 12.5
Thigh: -----31 ----- 30 ----- 29 -------- 28
Calf: ------20.5 --- 19.5 --- 19.5 ------- 18.5
Neck: -----17.5 --- 17 ----- 16.5 ------- 16

I look at myself and I look the same to me, but that seems like a whole buncha inches.

Body fat - this is tough to measure accurately, and I'm finding there isn't much point in me putting a whole lot of stock in it. I have been trying both the impedance machine at the pharmacy, and the Accu-measure callipers I bought and have, I think, been getting better at using.
Last month I came up at 36%
This month I came up with 35%
I really don't know how much this means, given the variance between the two methods, and particularly the variance of the impedance machine.

So, what can I say after all this?

So far, so good.

Congrats on your anniversery! You've got some serious momentium with you now, and you sound like you are enjoying the new lifestyle, which is GREAT to hear!

I just wanted to comment on all those inches you lost. Thats pretty incredible, and it shows how dedication can payoff. Very inspirational stuff! KEEP GOING STRONG!

wow cord, CONGRATULATIONS on the great progress, your doing amazing...39pounds in 3 months! and all those inches, the tape measure doesn't lie so that's definitely a job well done! and most importantly i like you said your HEALTHIER and HAPPIER....i think that's what we're all in this for, and for you things are definitely on a roll!

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful comments!

Some people say that inspiration and all that has to come from within, yadda yadda - screw that. Positive feedback is awesome!

It doesn't replace the inner fire that you need for this sort of thing, but it sure helps.

Anyway, I am a day behind on my journal posts, so here we go.

July 1 - Dominion Day

Today I went a little crazy with the exercise. The day was nothing unusual, but for my evening workout I went nuts and did something I didn't think I could pull off.

Breakfast - steelcut oats with hemp seeds and agave nectar

Lunch and work snacks - a lot of cherries, ww bun with almond butter, honey anmd hemp seeds, ww bun with roast beef and lt cream cheese, 2 nectarines, 1 cup of dry cereal, pretzels and a few peanut m&m's

Supper - salmon burger w/teriyaki sauce on ww bun, lettuce and tomato, steamed corn and broccoli

Post-workout hunger pang - McDonald's junior chicken and vanilla cone

6+ servings fruit/veg

Exercise - a 40 minute walk at work, then 20 minutes or so of casual kayaking - just tooling around on the lake.

In the evening - went up and down 300 flights of stairs in an hour. I had no iodea I could do that, and I was pretty wiped out and soaked in sweat afterwards, but not to the point of collapse of anything. I have to admit I impressed myself.

July 2

Feeling pretty good about the morning's weigh-in (details above), and extremely hungry after back-to-back evening and morning workouts, breakfast was a matter of giving in to cravings.

breakfast - 1 doughnut, 9oz steak, 1 banana

snack - 1" round pf watermelon

lunch - my wife wanted to go to the tea house donw the highway, so off we went, only to find that we had missed lunch and they were only serving dessert. So I had 3 cups of white tea and a big piece of chocolate cake

supper and work snacks - around 16 cherries, 2" round of watermelon, 1/2 cup dry cereal, pretzels and a few peanut m&m's, big bowl of lentil stew, 2 corn muffins with margarine

late night - 1 cup cereal, 1 cup milk

6-7 total fruit/veg servings

Exercise - tried a morning workout today, knowing that I wouldn't get much chance later. 45 minute swim - 1200m

Hi Cord, happy anniversary....great job on posting the numbers and stuff....and I think you are right that it is a new lifestyle and that it wont always be easy. I feel so great about myself right now that I dont ever want to go back. I feel very sexy but more important I feel in charge of my own body. Something that was really really lacking when I was at my heaviest...I just saw the journey as a "long road" that I thought I would never travel, now halfway to my goal (my ticker doesnt reflect my true goal) I am so proud...and the positive feedback here and in true life is the best motivator ever.

anyway...keep up the great work and thanks for the visits in my journal.

hugz and shizzzzz
me

Excellent! Keep it up cord!

Thanks, Karebare - and a pleasure to have you drop by!

That's the plan. I'm feeling kind of unstoppable at the moment.

July 3

Took the day off from working out today - don't want to overdo it. My knee is feeling better today - I overtaxed it doing all those stairs and it had been hurting for a couple of days.
Didn't eat a lot of starchy-type carbs today for some reason. Just didn't happen.

breakfast - roast beef sandwich on ww bun with light cream cheese

lunch - pork button ribs (maybe an 8" strip?)

supper and work snacks - pile of cherries (around 20), 2 nectarines (had to eat 'em both before they went off), 2 more strips of button ribs, pile of vegetables (tomato, carrot, cucumber, snap peas), 1 cup dry cereal and a handful of cashews.

total fruit/veg servings: 7

Exercise: 30 minutes of hiking on some bike trails - lots of hills.

Today is my last day of work! I go on 12 days of leave starting tomorrow.
Among other things, I will be going to Vancouver and doing some serious hiking. As a result I won't be posting regularly after tomorrow. I will check in and catch up when I can.

Congratulations Cord, you're doing an awesome job!

Woooo Hooooo, 12 days away from work is a great thing, Hiking in Vancouver, even better. Where abouts are you going to go?
I hope you have a great time away